Best Served Cold
by PADavis
Summary: Suffering for Server – Dean's sick. Of course he is – it's Mad Server's Birthday.Set S1, no spoilers, brief mention of an event in S01.3 Dead in the Water. Rated T for language.


A/N: It is always a pleasure to wish Mad Server the best birthday EVER even though a wee bit late. A few of us felt it necessary to sicken Dean to celebrate the occasion. Please see the other _Suffering for Server_ fics from my co-conspirators: Miyo86, NewspaperTaxis, Sidjack, and Soncnica.

My thanks to NewspaperTaxis who bravely faced this fic, held it down, and beta'd it's ass. I played with it once I got it back - had too much time waiting for fanfic to let me post - and had time to add a scene she insisted (really insisted) that she, and surely Mad Server, would like bunches if I would just write it. Thanks, A! All remaining errors are, of course, my own.

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><p>Sam sighed, cranked himself around sideways, leaned back on the passenger door, and tried to find a comfortable place for his legs that wouldn't totally cut off the circulation to his feet. There just wasn't enough room. He wiggled again, leaned against the dash, and tried the back of the bench seat but both feet were swatted down when he managed to clip Dean's ear with a sneaker.<p>

"Sam—quit squirming so much! Bad enough when you were eight." He coughed, winced, and grabbed for a water bottle. "Get me some aspirin out of the glove compartment, willya?"

"I didn't hit you that hard." Sam resentfully rooted around until he pulled out some dubious looking white tablets. Brushing off some specks of lint, he held them up to the pale winter light coming through the windshield. "Huh. These look like…" The pills were snatched out of his hand and swallowed. "What the hell, Dean? That could be anything."

"Looked like aspirin."

"Like you looked."

"Pills are pills." Dean drank, Adam's apple bobbing, before clearing his throat noisily. "Tasted like aspirin."

Sam scowled and poked him with one foot. "Yeah. That's what I'll tell them at the hospital when you crash the car."

"You take classes on being a whiny bitch at that school?" Dean coughed again.

"You getting sick?"

Dean set the cassette's volume to ear splitting.

* * *

><p>Sam had his back on the seat, head and shoulders crushed into the back rest, knees in his face, trying out his feet on the dash. He thumbed at his phone, emailing a friend. At this point, the ceiling of the car was more interesting than the dreary winter weather that reduced Wisconsin and Illinois to a gray damp blur outside the car windows.<p>

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to get comfortable."

"Folding yourself up like origami is comfortable?" Dean's deep voice cracked on _origami_.

Suspicious eyes surveyed his brother. Dean was squinting, pushing his chin forward and rubbing his throat.

"You're sick?

"Dove in a fucking freezing lake in November." His voice was rough. "Caught a cold or something."

Sam wordlessly handed him aspirin from the new bottle in his pocket.

Dean raised his eyebrows in mute inquiry.

Rolling his eyes, Sam showed him the bottle. "It's aspirin. What else?"

"Hard to tell. No lint."

* * *

><p>Three weeks and ten states later, Sam swung one foot against the leg of the table. "You're not eating."<p>

His brother looked up from behind the paper, frowning. "I'm eating right now."

"That's soup." Anxious, his foot swung again, thunking the table.

Dean examined the bowl carefully, turning it, checking the bottom, lifting up a spoonful of noodles and chicken. "Amazing deduction, Brainiac. It's soup. It's also food."

"You never order soup." Foot swing. "You had oatmeal for breakfast. You hate oatmeal." Another swing and thunk. "You have a sore throat." Dean's mouth flattened. Sam tried not to flinch.

"What…" Dean stopped, brows drawn down. Started again, softer, "What's with the Spanish Inquisition? It's just a bowl of soup, Sam. I wanted soup today, all right?"

"Then eat more of it."

"My, aren't you the little tyrant today." He pushed the bowl away. "It's cold."

Flagging the waitress to their table, Sam asked for another serving. When it arrived, fragrant steam curling over the bowl, Sam looked at his brother expectantly. "Eat some."

"I'm not hungry."

"Oh. My. God." Sam widened his eyes. "You not hungry? Dad used to say that was a sign of the apocalypse."

Dean raised one finger.

Another thunk on the table leg. Sam gave his brother a hard look. Pale, dark smudges under his eyes... "We're stopping at a pharmacy on the way out of town."

Dean grabbed the new bowl and dragged it closer, hissing when soup sloshed on his hand. He quickly ate several spoonfuls. Mouth full, he smiled broadly. "Happy now?"

"Ecstatic. We're still stopping."

"You looking for a hot chick pharmacist?" He held up his hand. "If you hit that table leg one more time with your giant foot, you're really going to need one."

Sam shook his head, thunked the table. "That would be more threatening if you could talk over a whisper."

"Bite me."

* * *

><p>Sam full body pressed the bathroom door, trying to ooze into the room between the fibers of wood. "Dean, please. I need to go."<p>

"In a 'inute."

"C'mon, Dean, you've been in there forever."

The door swung open, making Sam stagger to keep his balance. "I 'aid, jus' a 'inute." Dean brushed by him.

Once the more urgent business was done, Sam picked up a salt-encrusted glass. "Dean—you gargling with salt water?" There was no answer. He poked his head out of the bathroom. "Don't tell me you have another sore throat."

"'kay."

Sam walked back into the room scowling. "You do have a sore throat."

Dean hunched a shoulder.

"You had one in November. Then again last month. You have another one?" The only answer was the snap and hum of the TV turning on. Sam wrestled the remote away from his brother and hit mute. "Project Runway?"

The protest was barely audible. "I'm innerested in fashion."

Sam snorted and turned off the TV. Dean growled, winced, coughed, and cursed sullenly. Winced again. It would have been funny, if he wasn't so pale, a sheen of sweat on his face, eyes glassy. Dean pulled himself to the head of the bed and relaxed against the headboard, wrapping arms around himself when he shivered.

"You look like shit, Dean."

'Wha'ever."

"What's with the sore throats?"

He opened one bleary eye to glare at his brother. "Caugh' a col'." Closed his eye.

"Dean, you're talking like you have rocks in your mouth…" He'd been sidling toward the bed as he spoke. When he was close enough, he sank down next to his brother and clapped a hand on his Dean's forehead, easily avoiding the uncoordinated attempt to bat his arm away. "And, you have a fever. You might have strep throat." He punched his brother's arm. "Untreated, strep can turn into rheumatic fever. Or scarlet fever, I can't remember which, but it's really bad."

Sam bounced to his feet, grabbed Dean's coat and the car keys. "I'm taking you to a doctor. Right now."

"Sam." Dean pushed up on shaking arms. "Slow dow'. Nah strep."

"What then?"

"'Onsils."

In two steps, Sam was back, looming over his brother. "What?" He grabbed Dean's chin, angled the bedside light, and forced Dean's mouth open. "Holy…don't move!" Sam snagged a duffle. He sat back down with a flashlight in hand.

"Gerroff me." Dean tried to turn away but Sam stopped him with his own growl, brows pinched over his nose.

"Open up." The direct light played over a bright red mouth. Grotesquely swollen tonsils, dotted with white beads of pus, were almost blocking his brother's airway. "Fuck, Dean," Sam whispered, "how're you breathing?"

"Carefuwy."

"It's not funny." Sam stood again, hands fisted, face flushing red. "What the hell? I thought you had those removed years ago!"

Dean held his throat and watched him warily.

"How? You had a tonsillectomy! You told me all about it before I had mine. You knew exactly what to do. Kept me in butter pecan ice cream for a week."

Dean quirked up one corner of his mouth. "'Budder pecan. Always knew…you were a pansy."

"But…"

"I jus'", Dean coughed, frowned. "I tol' you I had one so you wouldn't be scared. Tha's all I did. Dad was there the whole time. 'Member?"

Sam spun on his brother, breathing hard. "Yeah. He told me to be brave then dumped us at Bobby's a day later. You stayed."

Dean stuck out his lip. "Where was I going to go? I like it at Bobby's. And Dad had a hun'…a _hunt_."

Sam's arms jerked up, involuntarily. "I don't care! Why didn't Dad make sure you had the operation, too?"

Dean shrugged again, settling back against the pillows. If anything, he looked worse than he had just a few minutes before. His hair was spiked with sweat, spots of red high on his cheeks, shivering… Sam took a deep breath and breathed out slowly, gingerly sitting down again, the bed dipping under his weight brought Dean's eyes jerking open.

Gently this time. "Dean. What happened? Why didn't you have your tonsils out?"

"Wasn' his fault. Dad usually didn't have insurance. Never the right time, right place."

"But it was for me."

"Sure, you were really sick."

"You're really sick now."

"I'll get over it. Always do."

"No. This time, you're going to the doctor."

* * *

><p>Dean was far too sick to put up an effective fight, but still, Sam had to practically hog tie him to allow the ER doctor free access to Dean's throat. The peritonsillar abscesses tucked behind Dean's tonsils were a disgusting surprise. When the doctor drained them, pus and blood leaked into Dean's mouth forcing him to vomit uncontrollably, misery just dripping off him.<p>

The doctor promptly admitted Dean, pumping him full of IV fluids and antibiotics for a day while the fever baked him to a brick red crisp. Sam vacillated between anxious hovering and frustrated exercise, scattering nurses as he barreled down hospital corridors to burn off the energy that wasn't spent quietly talking to his brother or working on the laptop. Dean wasn't eating, didn't want to drink, and couldn't talk. It was driving Sam crazy.

On the second day, the fever broke, leaving Dean listless but more himself, flipping through the limited TV channels dementedly fast, and demanding, through arm waving and cryptic scribbles, information on their next hunt. Sam had a huddled conference in the hall with Dean's doctor before they both went in the room and tried to convince the patient to have the tonsillectomy as soon as possible.

It didn't go over well. Finally, Sam ushered the doctor out, and settled down in the chair by the bed.

"Have the operation, Dean. It's quick. They'll do it tomorrow morning and we can leave in the evening if you don't hemorrhage."

Dean shook his head slowly.

"Painkillers and antibiotics for a few days. You'll have all the ice cream you can eat. I won't even complain when you watch _Oprah._" When Dean shook his head again, Sam leaned closer, propping his arms on the bed rails. "I'm really worried about you, man. You can't keep getting sick like this."

Dean wrote a note. "_My problem._"

It was Sam's turn to shake his head. He looked mournfully at his brother. "Our problem. What if you get sick during a hunt? What if you're sick when Dad finally calls?"

Dean finally met his eyes for a moment then they dropped to his pad of paper. _"Deal_ _then_."

"No. Deal now." Sam leaned back, strategizing, as he stretched his shoulders and back until something popped. Time for a change of tact. "Do it so I don't have to keep dragging your sorry ass to doctors and hospitals. And you know I'll do it. Over and over. Until this is taken care of."

Dean rolled his eyes. Scribbled, _"Ass is not sorry."_

* * *

><p>Dean was still groggy when Sam dragged him, weaving and shuffling, back to their motel the next night. After a trip to the head, Sam deposited him onto one bed before crawling into his own. He woke hours later to find Dean struggling to sit up.<p>

"How you doin', bro?" Sam packed some pillows behind his brother, handing him prescriptions and a glass of water.

Dean's voice, when he found it, was a bare whisper. "Grossest goddamn thing that ever happened to me." A hand was back at his throat, rubbing slowly. "So, where's my ice cream, bitch?"

Sam laughed, returning from the kitchenette to hand over a large ceramic bowl, heaped with pastel pink ice cream, with '_I've been a good boy_' written around the edge, "I got your favorite. Strawberry."

Dean smiled lazily around a mouthful. "Goo'."

"Because that's the manliest flavor."

Dean choked a little bit, scowling. "At least fruit's a real flavor."

"Pecan is a..." Sam stopped, scrubbed his face. "Forget it. Shut up and eat your ice cream."

"You're still a…girl." Dean sucked in another spoonful before looking up at Sam. "Thanks."

"Eat."

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><p>Thank you for reading. I hope you'll review.<p> 


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